Last Wednesday was a two-for-one special for this intrepid dart reporter as Eric Christopher “Redbeard” Hanson graciously accepted my impromptu request for an interview as we waited for my scheduled victim, Noony, to finish up a match.  Eric the Red, as I enjoy referring to him, was born far, far away from our little burg in the town of Richland in the state of Washington.  Fortunately for us, he didn’t stay there long; at the tender age of 6 months he moved to nearby Lynchburg, Virginia.  Like most folks, he was lured to Blacksburg by Virginia Tech, specifically programs in Engineering and Chemistry.  He isn’t currently in either of those lines of work, though, opting instead for the great outdoors.  Eric landed the sweet job as caretaker, innkeeper, gardener, “I even do the taxes,” he says, “I’m jack [of all trades],” at the Nesselrod on the New.  “It’s perfect for my current situation,” says Eric.  “It’s more money, and I live on the property in a small one-bedroom in the basement.”

 Eric’s darting career started when he was a freshman at Tech back in 1989.  He met another of our darting folk, Jim Bean, in a five-hour calculus class.  Jim was a senior and knew the bars of B’burg a bit better than young Eric.  “We got to talking,” says Eric, “and ended up going to Ton 80 after class…and he taught me how to play darts.”

 Tuesday night league was where Eric first started throwing competitively back around 1995 or ’96.  He’s played on the same Tuesday night team since he started give or take a few players, with names ranging from Horizontal Breakfast to VooDoo Buddist.  A couple of years back, Eric added Wednesday night darts to his busy schedule, playing for a team called Fear and Loathing.  He can also be seen at many a Saturday night at luck of the draw.

 Tuesday night darts has provided Eric with some memorable moments – good and not so good.  Thinking back to his earliest competitive dart memory, like many of us, he remembers a defeat.  “It was in the first three nights [of my first season].  There were just a few of us,” he says, “I was the best at cricket, so I threw top line cricket and got killed.”  Eric wasn’t positive, but he said that opponent who “killed” him may have been Robbie Hickerson; there’s a tough draw early in one’s darting career!

In better moments, Eric remembers throwing a Ton 80 against Robbie’s better half, Pegi, playing cricket in the second season he threw Tuesday nights.  That wasn’t his best dart memory, however.  Playing a singles match against an unremembered member of The Otis Campbell Society he threw a game where he opened with a 7-mark, followed with a 7-mark and finished it up in four or maybe five more throws.

 His best out ever was a 130 that he took out on a double bull.  He hit a single 20 first, then found the trip 20, leaving him 50 and one dart.  “I remember I said, ‘Oh, what the hell,’ and whack!” says Eric with grin.  Despite that auspicious out, neither ton-30 nor double bull are his favorites when it comes to ending a 501 game.  “I seem to hit double four an awful lot,” Eric said, “seem to hit it more often than not.”

 For doubles partners, Eric’s easy going and likes to throw with just about anyone.  “I have fun when I throw doubles; it doesn’t matter who my partner is,” he says.  If pressed for a choice, he did admit that he liked throwing with Pat Barnhart because, “throwing with Pat, I don’t have the pressure to have to throw well to win” and throwing with Robbie Hickerson because “every time I throw with Robbie in Luck of the Draw, we win.”

 As for favorite dart bars, he is yet another fan of the Underground.  Guiness is his favorite beverage, and the bartenders usually have the mug and are grabbing the tap when he comes through the door, although they usually check first just in case he has switched to his summer brew of choice, Corona.  His personal beer bell curve (the number of beers needed to get him to the peak of dart performance) is a mystery to him; “It’s guess work,” he says, “and I usually screw it up.”

 Outside of darts, Eric reads a good bit of fantasy and sci-fi novels, his favorite being the classic Stranger in a Strange Land (I grok that Eric.).  Highlander is his favorite cinema classic (There can be only one…).  His first concert ever was, get this, the Bangles! and, believe it or not, Redbeard was a Theta Xi fraternity brother at Tech.  One other thing you might not know about him…that beard of his hides a nasty scar he picked up by sledding into a tree when he was a kid.  That’s okay Eric, the red beard is sexy.

 His advice to beginning darters is to throw against as many different folks as you can and don’t get frustrated.  To Cody’s question (True/False: is Noony a tool?) he answered “True.”  Scott Noonkester was available for comment; read his article to find out what it was.  The question Eric would like me to ask future “Faces Behind the Line”?  How many times have you thrown your darts down on the floor in frustration?  For him, he answered ten or less.

Yall come back now y'hear?

Pat

Believe it or not, it is time (well, way past time…) for the fourth and fifth installments of Faces Behind the Lines, a who’s who of mini-biographies of the dart throwers from the various Blacksburg Area Dart Leagues.  For all who are happy to see me back at the keyboard, you have Matt O’Sickey to thank for kicking me in the ass (which for some reason got my fingers a tap-tap-tapping; must be some mid-west form of acupuncture).  The latest victim of a Wednesday night drunken interview is our own lovable transplant, originally from Flushing, New York, Arthur Harry “Ahhtie” Grimes.

 Artie comes to us with a wealth of dart experience.  He has been shooting darts for about 15 years and even ran the New York Dart League out of the Bronx for five years along with his friend and fellow dart thrower, Sean McEvoy.  Darts began for Artie because he was pissed off.  Really.  Some of the folks at a bar he frequented started a dart team and didn’t invite him.  Apparently he let them know of his ire, and they saw the error of their ways.  Thus the marriage of Artie and darts was born.  The first game he remembers playing was a doubles match with Scotty Young after the local church’s men’s night out.  His first ever game was his first ever win, but, he says, “We lost every game after that.”

 Artie has definitely honed his dart prowess and won a good share of matches since then.  The best dart experience that he remembers is playing with semi-pro Jamie Donavan, a top shooter from New York.  Artie says, “We went away for the weekend just to play [at a tournament in Cincinnati].  Normally he wouldn’t have played with me; he would’ve played with a pro.”  But he did play with Artie, who was throwing some very good darts that weekend.  They came in eighth overall, and Artie said, “That was about the best time” he had ever had at darts.

The experience produced his one best shot and what is now his favorite out, as well.  Artie remembers that one of the other darters at the tourney said, “Don’t worry about him [Artie], he can’t hit anything.”  Now we all know not to throw out that kind of a challenge to our favorite New Yorker, but apparently this guy didn’t.  Artie said, “I hit a double bull, double sixteen to take it out – with one dart left in my hand.  It felt really good after that remark.”  Since then, 82 has been his favorite out. [Webmiester's note - don't try this at home.  To hell with the double bull, just hit the trip 14 already].

One thing that most of us don’t know about Artie is that he was once accused of cheating in a 301 match at Brady’s bar in New York.  “That bar I remember,” said Artie.  “The guy’s name was Pat,” he said with a grin and a nod at our own Pat Barnhart throwing a match one lane over, “but, not him of course.”  The NY Pat accused Artie of lying about doubling in.  “The guy wouldn’t play me for a year after that and then we ended up on the same team,” he said.  Did Artie really try to sneak a close one by an opponent?  “I hit a double 14….  But he probably swears to this day that I didn’t get it,” is Artie’s response with a smile.

Of all the dart bars that Artie has experienced, he likes our own Ton 80 and London Underground Pub best.  The bartenders at the Underground do have his “usual” on the bar waiting for him when he comes through the door.  Bud light in a bottle is his drink of choice.  “It would be a Bud in a bottle,” says Artie, “but I’m on a diet.”  He enjoys throwing with Noony, Pat, Timmy, and Brent, not because of the high level of competition but “because of the fun I have; forget the darts.”  Thinking of the folks he enjoys throwing with made him also think of the other end of the spectrum.  “Timmy Ryan…was the guy who taught me the game,” said Artie.  “He was some teacher – tough as nails.”  Artie says that Ryan’s favorite saying was, “Those points ain’t for looks!” and that Ryan was the toughest captain there ever was.  “But don’t play for him!” said Artie.

Artie’s favorite movie is The Outlaw Josie Wales, his best stock tip is, “stay away from the market,” and if his team were on the hit TV show Survivor Artie would vote new addition Tommy off the team.  “He’s a great guy but a terrible shot,” said Artie to which Tommy, in the middle of match at the time, threw up his hands and responded, “Tonight he’s right.”

The second interview of last Wednesday was entertaining for everyone within earshot.  I’m happy to extend it out to a wider audience.  According to Cody Brent Sexton, he was raised on the moisture farm of his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on the planet Tatooine….  (Wasn’t it great when he grew up to partner with those two androids and Harrison Ford to save the world from his evil father Darth Vader?  I loved when he blew up the Death Star.  There’s just so much we don’t know about each other unless we take the time to ask.)  He came to Blacksburg following the Grateful Dead.  However, he has only been to two concerts in his life and both of them were Bob Dylan.

When not shooting darts, Cody says, “I try to take over the world – same thing we do every night, Pinky.”  Asked why he shoots darts, Cody responded, “Because it’s better than the other way around.”  He claims his first dart experience to have been when he blew up a porcupine.  Upon further questioning for clarification he explained, “Yeah, I blew up a porcupine; darts were flying everywhere.”
In actuality, Cody claims not to have had a best dart experience yet.  Teammates suggested the recent night when he hit three triple 19s, however Cody remarked, “Hitting three trip 19s wasn’t as fun as beating the crap out of Matt [O’Sickey] last night.”  At which point Artie chimed in, imitating Matt, “He used to be my bitch!”

Cody has been throwing darts for about five years now and, according to Pat Barnhart is beginning to come into his own as a top thrower of spears.  In a casual conversation with Pat which he was unaware would end up in this article (be careful what you say around me now that I’m back on the job!), he mentioned to me that Cody was beginning to believe he could win.  This, of course, is about the only thing really necessary to actually win.  As Pat is often heard to say, “You gotta believe…”

The London Underground is Cody’s favorite bar, and he says that every drink is his favorite drink.  In keeping with the theme of universality, his favorite out is “the one where I get to erase the board.”  When asked to tell the darting world something about himself that most of us don’t know, Cody offered, “I have a superfluous third nipple,” although he did not prove it.  His favorite book is Green Eggs and Ham by the genius of literature, Dr. Seuss, and his favorite movie is Green Eggs and Ham, The Movie.  When asked for a top stock pick, he supplied this inside tip: “Chicken.  Although beef broth is pretty good with onions.”

If his team were on Survivor, Cody said that he would vote himself off so that he could wander around Australia and not have to eat rats.  He also volunteered this question for me to ask the up-coming Faces Behind the Lines interviewees – “True/False, is Noony a tool?”  Scott Noonkester was not available for comment.

But now, after much nagging, is the long awaited next installment.  See if you can guess who it is before I tell you at the end of the article.  (Don’t peek!)

This face behind the line had his first introduction to darts from his older brothers, dodging the darts rather than throwing them.  “My older brothers, they’re all 10 or more years older, used to have dart fights in our basement.  Needless to say, I tried to hide.”  He didn’t get his first experience throwing until his days at Ohio University at a classic Irish brewpub.  The owner of the pub was dating his cousin.  The owner recognized our “face’s” distinctive last name and provided a lot of free liquor and thus a dart player was born.  “I became the thrower instead of a small moving target,” he said.

He has had a few memorable dart moments.  In response to the question, “Where is the weirdest place you have thrown darts?” his response was, “Into Tanya’s knee.”  Apparently, he was defending her honor, when in a strange twist of events and torsos, he ended up skewering her instead.  She doesn’t seem to hold it against him.  It’s the thought that counts.

His most memorable dart moment was at a Blind Draw tournament at Ohio U.  He and his partner made it to the finals but had to wait quite a while as the other team was decided.  In the interim, as is true at any good dart tournament, there was much drinking.  When the time came for he and his teammate to throw, he was so, shall we say, unstable, that his partner had to stand back-to-back with him at the line to keep him from falling down.  At the line, with 170 left in a 501 game, his partner asked him, “Dude, can you hit a triple 20?” So our hero did.   Then, “Dude, can you hit another?” And he did.  And then finally, “Can you hit a double bull?”
“Sure enough, I did,” our “face behind the line” said.  He had taken a ton-seventy out and garnered a very memorable dart moment despite the alcoholic fuzz.

Our subject has been throwing for about five and a half years.  He hails from Cleveland and is a big Browns fan.  From there he went to Purdue University then to Ohio University where he picked up his dart game.  He ended up here in Blacksburg pursuing a PhD in Chemical Engineering, which is how he ended up with his current team, the Drunken Chippy Sluts.  His favorite color is black, his favorite beer is Guiness and his favorite liquor is scotch neat and/or ouzo, but not together.

If you haven’t figured it out yet (com’on, there were tons of clues!) our “Face Behind the Line” for this millenium is Tanya’s favorite Chippy Slut, Matt O’Sickey.

More faces coming soon...I promise not to make you wait so long again!  (Hey Bryant, Tommy, do you guys have those napkins I was writing on?  Email me, k?)

~Liz

Being in close proximity to the website (he creates it), Pat Barnhart is the lucky number two interviewee in our ongoing, untimely column, Faces Behind the Line.  Pat’s is a familiar face as he has been playing darts in Blacksburg for over 6 years.  He wasn’t always a dart master though…

Many people don’t know that Pat chose to serve his country directly after high school and joined the Army.  (Please begin humming a few bars of “Be…All That You Can Be” as you read on.)  It wasn’t just like it was portrayed in “Stripes,” but it seems that Pat enjoyed his tenure with our United States Armed Forces.  It is a little known fact that he spent two years as a “Master Blaster,” what the Army calls a “forward observer.” In Pat’s words his job was, “calling in artillery fire on unsuspecting junked jeeps” as his squadron of men played war.  He says he was basically an artilleryman with a radio and a pair of binoculars.  Apparently his timing was impeccable as he went in just after Libya and got out just before Desert Storm collecting an armload of cash for college on the way.

That job got him interested in maps and such and, with his GI Bill money in hand, he made his way to Tech to get a major in Geography.  After graduating he spent some time away from Blacksburg but made his way back to our little dart Mecca by chasing a woman.  She didn’t last, but the dart playing did.  James Watty first introduced Pat to darts over at James’ house.  James quickly got Pat into Tuesday night league play where Pat’s first match was against none other than Robbie Hickerson.  Robbie doesn’t remember it (just another novice to slaughter), but Pat remembers that he, “Just beat the shit out of me and then moved on.”  Much improvement has been made since then, eh Pat!?

Pat has always been teamed with James and Mike Minnaric with other teammates coming and going.  Currently, his team consists of James, Mike, Noony (Scott Noonkester), Yukon (Dave Anderson) and our New York transplant, Artie Grimes.   Of his early teams Pat says, “We sucked for a very long time.  Eventually we started getting better, took it more seriously.”  They won their first championship as No Slack.  In the past five seasons they have won three championships, usually pitted against the team headed up by his first dart nemesis, Robbie.

Pat’s favorite game is cricket but he has enjoyed playing 301 in the Sunday night Pro League games.  He remembers most a game he played when he was still relatively new at the game.  He was playing Bear during a season finals match, the first time his team had made it to the finals.  Pat was a bit nervous but when the dust cleared he had taken Bear two out of three games.  “It was a big deal for me,” said Pat.  “Now, it’s a toss up between us, but back then it was a big deal for me to beat him.  I don’t think he was too pleased about it.”

Pat works at Anderson and Associates here in Blacksburg.  Although he grew up in Staunton, Virginia doing farm work, he has switched to computer stuff in his adult life.  He really didn’t have an explanation for what he did except that he was “sort of a microstation, CAD person.  I do some programming, drafting and general goofing off – R &D.”  He is also in the process of starting up his own Microstation programming company, PBJ, via the web.  It is through A&A and Pat that our fabulous little website exists and so we owe them a hearty “thanks!”

If I were to write my own dart mini-bio (which I’m sure I will eventually being the verbose storyteller that I am), Pat would figure in as my most memorable dart opponent – I beat him once in cricket!  And, our next subject would come up as my first ever opponent.  Without further ado…

Yukon, as he is known because of his summers spent in Alaska, started playing darts at the young age of about 12.  He remembers playing in a friend’s basement with plastic darts.  They threw at a board that had a regular darts on one side and a baseball diamond on the other.  His first steel-tip experience was in the dorms here at Tech.  He said that he would go down to his friend’s dorm room and throw 30-40 darts three times a week.  It was three weeks before he hit his first bull.  They come a little more easily now!

Dave is originally from Roanoke and came to Blacksburg, like so many here, to attend Virginia Tech.  He started out majoring in aerospace engineering, later switching to engineering science and mechanics and is still working on finishing up.  Currently, he works as a soil and concrete technician.

He hooked up with the Guild, his current team, because they basically “won” him.  Both the Guild and Armed and Dangerous were interested in adding him to their team.   “They begged me to play with them,” said Dave, tongue in cheek.  So he decided whoever won the league championship that night would be the team he would play with.  The Guild won and he’s been with them now for three seasons.

Yukon’s most memorable dart moment came early in his dart career during the first tournament he ever played.  He was at a Virginia Tech dart tournament back in 1983 and had to play 301 without even knowing what the game was.  He was informed that he had to double in and asked, “Does double bull count?”  The other darters in the tournament laughed at him, but told him, yes that did count.  He hit it with the first dart and his opponent gave up then and there. Dave went on to get second place.

Another memorable dart moment albeit a fuzzy one was when Dave and a friend were playing at Top of the Stairs for 20 ounce beers.  They won 15 games in a row and only quit because they were so drunk they could hardly see the board and had gotten tired of winning.  Dave also remembers one perfect game at TOTS when another player challenged him.  He used the challenger’s darts and didn’t miss a single dart, ending the game with three bulls.  The challenger “got pissed and walked out,” Dave said.  He never did get his name.

Yukon is the big winner so far for most exotic place he’s played darts – Kenai Joe’s in Kenai, Alaska.  It is a small bar with a sawdust floor that sits on the bluffs at the mouth of the Kenai River just as it empties into Cook Inlet.  The view alone is said to be worth the trip.

When not playing darts Dave enjoys softball, dirt bikes, hunting and is an active philatelist (look it up).  Some things you may not know about him – his favorite color is purple, his favorite number is 17 and he once hit three double bulls.
 

The first victim (because he had been drinking and acquiesced to being interviewed – “Come, woo me, woo me,” writes Shakespeare, “for now I am in a holiday mood and like enough to consent.”) was Shad Bowling of team Mugs Away.  Mugs Away is in their first season of Wednesday night league play and consists mainly of guys who work with Shad at the Virginia Tech Bookstore.

Shad hails from Wise County and grew up in a little spot called Pound, VA.  Most folks don’t know he is, deep down, an Appalachian, hillbilly mountain man (his words).  Shad is the computer specialist for the bookstore, a position that combines his literary and scientific sides.  At Virginia Tech, he double majored in geophysics and English.

To satisfy his creative fires he spends time writing and is also one of the secret poets who lurk around Blacksburg.  (Don’t be fooled, there are many of us, often discovered scribbling away on Thursday nights at the London Underground.)

His first dart experience was with the Tuesday night dart league at the Underground.  He was friends with Nancy (who’s last name I don’t know) and Amy Ostroth who introduced him to Eric Hansen who was then the captain of one of the Tuesday night teams.  Shad had not played in a match before but volunteered to give it a try and was paired with Eric for a doubles 501 match against Carlo Colomano and someone who Shad couldn’t for the life of himself remember.  He did remember, however, that his first game ended in a loss.  No matter, he was hooked.

He has played a handful of seasons with a Tuesday night team and was the ringleader for pulling together the Wednesday night team, Mugs Away, on which he currently plays.  For the most part, his teammates prefer cricket.  He, advantageously, is a 501 man.  However, his most glorious dart moment came in a game of cricket against our illustrious web master and one of Blacksburg’s top spear throwers, Pat Barnhart.  Shad and Pat were playing for fun at Ton 80.  Shad took the unconventional route of closing his numbers “in a non-traditional order from the bottom up,” 15s first, pointing Pat mercilessly the whole way.  His strategy worked as he bested Pat using Pat’s own motto – “Point the shit out of ‘em!”

Shad’s most exotic dart experience was in a bar in Richmond even though it was “that crappy, plastic stuff (soft-tip).”  The name of the bar escaped him, but the names of the unending stream of mixed drinks stuck, “sex-on-the-beach, orgasm, and other weird sexual stuff.”

Of all the local dart spots, Shad prefers the Underground.  Can’t beat the atmosphere, ambience and cool crowd of dart folks who gather there.

Thanks go to out to you Shad for sacrificing yourself for the good of the website.  Not too painful, I hope.  Next victim, please.

For questions, comments, grammar tips, dart jargon, general ridicule email Liz at elwilki2@vt.edu.

Shoot ‘em up.